Tonight: When Pigs Fly @ Nietzsche’s

Tonight (Nov. 7), Artvoice is presenting a Jeff Garbaz production, in tribute to Pink Floyd and the best in audio-visual psychedelia. You don’t have to be an aficionado to know that Floyd was seriously into pigs, and featured inflatable, custom-designed porcines as props at their live shows dating back to the mid-1970s. The first Pink Floyd pig was reportedly named “Algie” and designed by Roger Waters himself for the cover of the 1977 album Animals. Reflecting Orwellian themes during the heyday of punk rock’s reign, Animals has often been tagged by rock historians as the band’s “forgotten” album, though its iconoclastic status is indisputable today. Perhaps such a deep dive into symbolism and psychedelia (the song “Dogs” on the album is 17 actual minutes long—basically the entire A side) wasn’t easy to receive in the Sex Pistols-enthralled culture of late 1970s Britain. But the album is largely dedicated to pigs, with three songs out of its five titled on that subject (Waters’s Orwell-inspired political commentary is quite fitting in these late aughties, no?), and the other two songs being the aforementioned “Dogs” and the 10-minute “Sheep.” Still, don’t expect any 10- to 20-minute overtures from the bands playing on Saturday night. The set list will be more in keeping with the kind of Floyd you don’t have to lay down in a dark room all alone to listen to. Garbaz’s head-spinning visual FX and set design will accompany choice covers from local bands Appestra, Cowboys of Scotland, Peanut Brittle Satellite, the Project, Relics of WNY, Rogue Science, Stu Fuchs, and the Vegetable Men. And even if you think you’ve heard it all before, just show up to see some pigs fly.